Album Review: Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here&mdash;Experience Edition

December 20, 2011

Pink Floyd
Wish You Were Here—Experience Edition
EMI

In the pantheon of gargantuan classic rock
records, Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here, is
a bona fide, mega-monster. Given its ubiquitousness
on the airwaves to this day, it’s a
safe bet that many of us could go without
hearing a single WYWH track and do just
fine. While the fine re-mastering job here
will make many of these songs a fresh listen
again, the real treat of this edition is Disc 2,
on which we get to hear the Floyd shaping
tracks from WYWH and 1977’s Animals in
their preferred laboratory—the stage.

It’s virtually inconceivable to imagine
a band of Pink Floyd’s stature undertaking
such an experiment in the modern age,
when fans count on greatest hits sets to
justify big ticket prices. But here we hear
the Floyd just a year on the heels of their
platinum breakthrough Dark Side of the
Moon, trying out a new sprawling epic called
“Shine On You Crazy Diamond.” David
Gilmour has not yet worked out the flourishes
that Floyd heads now know note for
note, and his tone is more blues grit than
the illuminated alien dew droplets we now
associate with the tune. But there is a rough
beauty to the version that’s a thrill to behold.

More interesting still are two early
attempts (from the same 1974 Wembley
date) at what would become “Sheep” and
“Dogs” on Animals—known here as “Raving
and Drooling” and “You’ve Got To Be
Crazy.” The former is slower here and more
plodding and less funky that what it would
become, that is, until we reach Gilmour’s
descending chord outro, where the band
kicks into the groove that would ultimately
define the best-known version. “You’ve Got
To Be Crazy” is jazzier and considerably
less menacing than “Dogs.” And Gilmour’s
cluttered, scat-styled vocal is awkward and
klutzy when juxtaposed against the streamlined
architecture of the Animals track. The
point here, however, is not perfection, but
a fascinating glimpse of a band at work and
on the move—at a time when superstars and
open-minded audiences could share in the
creative process. —Charles Saufley